Ben S

PhD, Am Religious History, minor Reformation+ history of science; MA, Semitics. Apple fan, LDS, francophile, bibliophile, gourmand, cyclist, husband.

[Ben S @BSpackman]

My dissertation is now available! A history of creation/evolution conflict in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 20th century. Honestly, some ground-breaking stuff. https://t.co/z5695ej4fr

[David Frum @davidfrum]

Trump was handed the opportunity to preside over a feel-good moment of national unity on July 4, 2026. All he had to do was for once in his life, not act like an egomaniacal lunatic. Instead, he's made a complete fiasco of the nation's 250th birthday. My latest https://t.co/77WQanV3kI

[The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints @Ch_JesusChrist]

Phones, watches, doorbells, cars, factories and energy grids are increasingly becoming connected, all collecting and communicating information to be interpreted, analyzed and acted upon.

Noting this trend, Elder Gerrit W. Gong (@GerritWGong)  of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will discuss how to safely navigate artificial intelligence in a 60-minute gospel workshop video titled “Faith, Dignity and Human Flourishing: Hearing God’s Voice in an Age of Artificial Intelligence,” available on Sunday, June 7, 2026.

Learn more on Church Newsroom.

https://t.co/OgoKUYBQnM

[Governor Newsom Press Office (parody) @AwesomeNewsom]

Donald is the first criminal in history to create a fund that brazenly takes money from the innocent and gives it to the guilty. Al Capone, John Gotti, Bernie Madoff - on their best day they couldn't compete with Donald. He could be the greatest criminal to ever hobble the earth.

[Governor Newsom Press Office (parody) @AwesomeNewsom]

American soldiers die in Trump's war, not a word from Donald. Gas and food prices skyrocket, not a word from Donald. People demand the Epstein files, not a word from Donald. But the minute you take his fat name off a building, Donald writes Mein Kampf for Morons.

[Peacemaking Saint @PeacemakingSt]

The year is 1987 and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf is chief pilot of Lufthansa and serving as a stake president.

The Frankfurt Temple was set to be dedicated and President Uchtdorf was asked to give an interview on German national television for the occasion.

He delivered a masterclass.

Every Latter-day Saint can learn from his Spirit-guided responses to these common questions about the Church.

Take a listen (especially you German speakers):

[David French @DavidAFrench]

"At the moment, the United States is negotiating with a regime that President Trump claimed we had already changed, to open a strait that was supposed to be open last month, and to end a nuclear program that we said we had obliterated."

So no, things are not going well: https://t.co/N1whNpkzAw

[Neal Spackman @NealSpackman]

The amount of alfalfa grown in the American west is a representation of how little we value water.

[JB Pritzker @JBPritzker]

Donald Trump and his MAGA allies said we can't afford SNAP.

Gold-coated horse statues and a $1 billion ballroom, however, made the cut.

[Team Talarico @TeamTalaricoHQ]

This is Nate Paul.

He was under FBI investigation for fraud. His real estate empire was collapsing after 18 properties filed for bankruptcy in a single year.

He wrote Ken Paxton a $25,000 check.

Then Paxton directed his AG’s office to hand Paul confidential investigative files.

They blocked foreclosure sales on his properties.

And they sided with Paul against the charity he was accused of defrauding.

Nate Paul even employed Paxton's mistress at Paxton’s recommendation.

Paxton's own senior staff reported his corruption to the FBI. They were fired.

This is what Ken Paxton does when he’s in a position of power — and it’s why he should be nowhere near the U.S. Senate.

[Reid Hoffman @reidhoffman]

1/ Trump was found liable for sexually assaulting E Jean Carroll, defaming her, and now he’s going after her again.

Trump cannot be allowed to use the full weight and power of the US Government to come after women who speak up, or anyone who supports them in doing so.

[Kevin Baron @DefenseBaron]

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." - General Dwight D. Eisenhower

"I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine." - General William Tecumseh Sherman

[Pastor Rich Lusk @Vicar1973]

Melchizedek is the Tom Bombadil of the Bible.

[Ed Whelan @EdWhelanEPPC]

Outrageous abuse of power.

[The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln]

The Republican Party quietly deleted their own ad attacking Ken Paxton's record on crime... because Paxton is now the Republican Party's nominee to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate.

Figured if the ad is important enough to delete, it's important enough to see...

[BYU @BYU]

NEW: A collaboration among researchers at BYU, @Baylor, @NotreDame & @YUNews found a consistent, repeatable pattern: AI responses are excluding religious perspectives, and subtly encouraging conversion to some faiths, while discouraging other conversions.
https://t.co/Bf0VvwplzO

[Pope Crave @ClubConcrave]

Pope Leo quotes Gandalf in encyclical debut:

“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.”

[Clint Teeples @TeeplesCY]

Yesterday I shared a post about Jaxson Dart's jersey sales. Turns out the numbers were satire. Fair correction.

But the jersey numbers were never the point. This was.

81% of white evangelical Protestants say America should be a "Christian nation" (Pew).

And Pew has also found that roughly half of white evangelicals say Latter-day Saints aren't Christian at all.

Read those two facts together. The movement most determined to make America officially Christian is also the movement most certain that we don't count as Christian. Every Latter-day Saint should think carefully about where we'd stand if that project ever got what it wanted.

This is why the Church has said the same thing since the beginning. Joseph Smith didn't just fight for our rights. He fought for the rights of Catholics, Jews, and Muslims too. He knew that if the government gets to pick a favorite religion, the little guy always loses. And we are the little guy.

Our own 11th Article of Faith says it plainly: we claim the privilege of worshiping how we choose, "and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may."

We don't secure our place by winning a contest over who counts as Christian. We secure it by defending the rights of all faiths, including the ones who'd exclude us.

[Danny Deraney @DannyDeraney]

Every year, I share this video of French caretakers who take sand from Omaha Beach in Normandy, and scrub them into the letters to give them the gold coloring.

They do this for all 9,386 US soldiers who died.

France also gave us this land as American soil. #MemorialDayWeekend

[Henry Brean @RefriedBrean]

This report raises troubling new questions about Hunter Biden's laptop.

[Jonah Goldberg @JonahDispatch]

I love how MAGA apologists who ignored or even celebrated Trump’s character flaws now suddenly discover them and pretend to be brave truth tellers. When it would have cost them, they happily promoted the cult. Now they’re like “oh my God it’s a cult! Why can’t you see it?!”